The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1887-08-31
SOUTHERN AGRICULTURAL.
Bury the Dead.

There is always some immediate
cause for chicken cholera which is
readily detected and may be removed
and the malady stamped out by
prompt and energetic action. l Tor
one do not believe that because one or
two fowls die with the symptoms OF
cholera the flock should be left to its
evil fate. This is not the custom, !
am well aware, with wide awake poul-
try fanciers, but in the country dis
tricts the idea does not seem to pre-
vail to very great extent that if few
chickens die of the disease why-'The
chickens have the cholera, and its no
use to doctor Them" This is
the kind of a song l
heard at several places in
Southeast Missouri last month while
there on a brief visit. l remember
one place in particular where the pro-
prletor was showing us his flock after
having reported ga little cholera, +"
and who in reply to our inquiry as to
what he did with those that died, stat
ed that ''the boys" buried the most
of them. took a look at the boys
little urchins aged respectively eight
and ten years-and Immediately lost
faith in that mans ability or earnest
ness as a poultryman. He had some
of our fine Brown Leghorn eggs on
the shares, and the cholera was get
ting both shares. Even as we were
talking l parted cluster of weeds
with stick l carried, and was not
at all surprised to have
revealed the dead body of an old hen.
partly decomposed, polluting the air
and the soil. The proprietor did not
appear at all surprised or shocked at
the sight, and twas within twenty-five
feet of his hen-house, too.
Everywhere I found the same neg
lect of the dead. The people seemed
to attach no Importance to the neces-
sity of burying the fowls that died
either from accident or disease, nor to
fear any evil results from such neg
]ect.
1t wasn't ignorance on their part 1t
was Indifference and neglect. The most
Of the people about that little river
town (not seventy miles from St.
Louis) who have lately begun to raise
fancy fowls are also engaged in farm
ing or other pursuits and it still comes
natural to them to slight the poultry
for what they consider greater interests
(of course there are exceptions) and
consequently their success as poultry
men is only fair. But whenever and
wherever the opportunity offered l put
in good word for the faithful hen, and
pleaded for decent burial for her,
both as matter of right and of neces-
sity.
Here in Nashville, even, persons who
call themselves poultry fanciers throw
their dead fowls in the back alleys and
fence corners, there to poison the air
and spread contagion-both among
their own and their neighbors' birds.
l tell you it is wrong. 1t is a shame.
and anyone that does such thing
ought to be amenable to the law for
such really criminal action. No mat
ter how careful and clearly a person
may be about his own premises, if one
of his flock happens to stray into the
alley near by such careless individ-
ual. it is liable to bring back the seeds
of disease and death-being contain
mated by the poison from dead hen
in the alley or fence corner:
What can we do, or what shall we
do to protect ourselves? We must
first be sure that our own skirts are
clear, that no guilt lies at our own
door. Then let every true fanciel
urge his neighbor, who may keep
chickens in the old-fashioned, slip
shod way; urge him when one of them
dies from any cause whatever, to bury
it and bury it deeply; to fumigate and
whitewash his poultry quarters, tc
kerosene the roosts and put blue-stone
in their drinking water And also
urge him not to stop with the first eff
forts, but to make it a practice to clean
out and polish up at least once a week,
and give his fowls half a chance for
decent living.-H. B. Geer, in ST. Louis
Poultry Record.
! Q